


can we talk about this later? your voice is driving me insane

by polyphobiaa



Category: Just Roll With It (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, and definitely super dont have a lot of stuff to work out at all, classic brother stuff yknow, its all very cool and normal, these are definitely two people who are emotionally mature for sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25431193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyphobiaa/pseuds/polyphobiaa
Summary: thoughts on lying, past mistakes, and dancing around the issue.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	can we talk about this later? your voice is driving me insane

neither br’aad nor sylnan ever knows how to talk to the other when things get serious, which you would think after years of only having each other would remedy itself, but it never does. sure, they can banter, they can joke around, but the moment they need to talk to each other, really talk, both of them clam up.

this has been true for more than twenty years and will probably never change.

when it was just petty arguments when they were kids, one would just go back to acting normal around the other and everything would be fixed. they both silently resolved to just not think about it, not talk about it, and eventually it always went away. there were bigger things to worry about than the two of them butting heads over one thing or another.

when they got older, it was harder. when they had fights, that solution wasn’t a solution anymore. it was called avoiding the problem, and it was called bottling it up, and it was called lying about your feelings, and it was bad. but both brothers grew up on lying, got all their meals by lying, made all their friends through lying. they lived and breathed lies. falsehoods were their lifeline, fabrication was their religion. lying was how they learned to survive.

so they lied.

to each other.

to themselves.

and when br’aad came back after that fight he was lying, saying that he was okay, saying that a year away got rid of any hard feelings. it didn’t. in that year away it just festered and ate away at his guts until he couldn’t stand to feel alone anymore. all he had was a shitty ghost in his shitty brain saying shitty things and playing shitty games and making his life worse and worse until he couldn’t stand it by himself anymore. it didn’t feel the same as it was before, but sylnan was there, and not being alone was good enough, he told himself over and over and over.

they didn’t talk about that fight again, not ever. a mutual agreement to pretend it never happened, to pretend it didn’t still hurt. to lie about it. because the lie made them both feel better. if it made them both feel better, it was okay!

right?

sylnan didn’t talk about when he died, either. neither of them talked about when he died. it was too much, much too much. both felt, in their own unique and special way, like it was their fault. their cardinal fuck-up, that if only they hadn’t done this or that or the other everything would have been okay. if br’aad hadn’t made that pact, if he had taken that hit instead, sylnan would have been fine. if sylnan had been a little stronger, if he had made that deal, he could have protected br’aad. each one of them felt like they failed the other. neither one was okay.

but if they never addressed the problem, they thought it might go away.

(it didn’t, because it never does, but they didn’t know any other way to do it.)

br’aad pretended he was fine, he was happy. it wasn’t like he could do anything else. his job was to keep everyone else happy, keep their morale up, boost their spirits, make them laugh. he was there to help! there to make people feel good! he was a performer, and if he could keep that performance up, well, then he was doing his job right! if he wasn’t, he was fucking it up.

if he fucked it up, he wasn’t sure how much longer anyone else would want him around.

sylnan pretended he was okay, he was normal. he didn’t talk about what it was like to be dead. nobody likes to think about dying, including him. better to avoid the topic. he didn’t ask about what happened when he was gone. he didn’t ask about ugarth. (he tried not to think about ugarth if he could help it.) he avoided the topic, danced around it, acted okay, closed himself off. figured there were bigger problems in the world.

it would be awfully selfish of him to make it all about him again.

and even though they trusted each other, even though they loved each other, even though they’d known each other for so, so long, each brother walked on eggshells around the other. both operated on one mindset and one mindset only - “he has more important things to worry about than me.” and if they knew that either one felt that way around the other, they would stop it in its tracks, reassure the other, help them through it.

but they didn’t know, and they couldn’t say, so nothing changed.

nothing will ever really change.

even when they both say it all got better.

**Author's Note:**

> I DID IT I WROTE ANOTHER FIC AND ITS SHORT BECAUSE I WRITE A LOT OF INTROSPECTIVE STUFF THAT'S REALLY HARD TO MAKE LONG WITHOUT IT GETTING REDUNDANT YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH
> 
> you guys like, uhh, vengolor brothers? you like angst? huh? you like being sad? and fucked up? huh?


End file.
